East Millinocket seeks tenant at industrial park

EAST MILLINOCKET – It took about 13 years to entice a business to move to the former “shell building” in the Katahdin Regional Industrial Park, and now that Porter’s Woodworking Co. has apparently closed, town officials are confident that it won’t take as long to find a new tenant.

Town officials are working with the building’s owner, the Katahdin Regional Development Corp., and the Millinocket Area Growth & Investment Council, which manages it, to find a new tenant, town administrative assistant Shirley Tapley said.

“We [the town] could be liable for about $153,000, but we don’t think that will be the case,” Tapley said Wednesday.

That money comes from a Community Development Block Grant used to pay for the town’s engineering studies and for some building construction that helped finish the structure, which was called the shell building because it literally was a shell, said Mark Scally, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

Porter’s satisfied some of the grant conditions. To satisfy the remainder, a tenant employing six people – half from low- to moderate incomes – is required, Scally said.

“It’s not panic time. We can do this,” Scally said Thursday, “and we are still better off [having accepted the grant] because we have a finished building rather than an unfinished building. That’s much easier to find a tenant with.”

Bruce McLean, director of KRDC and executive director of MAGIC – both quasi-public agencies dedicated to improving the economy of East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket – showed the building to possible tenants three times last week.

“There is some significant interest,” McLean said. “I believe the reason it is generating interest is that it is not a shell. It is completely finished and it has a lot of equipment in it” that Porter’s used that could be included or bought in the deal.

KRDC hopes to get the building leased for about $2,200 a month – a real bargain for 15,000 square feet, McLean said. The building features three-stage electrical power, radiant heat from the floor, a separate wood finishing room, office space and bathrooms and is within 50 feet of a freight rail line.

Porter’s, meanwhile, closed within the last two or three weeks, Tapley said.

“We’re very sad it didn’t work out,” Scally said, “but this was a contingency we had planned for.”

The company came to East Millinocket after a fire on July 20, 2005, destroyed a mill that included a planer and woodcutter, plus paddle-making machinery and a wood laminator at the company’s former location, 533 Shin Pond Road in Patten.

About half the factory’s operations were conducted under a tent after the fire until the move began.

Porter’s owner Jim Carson did not immediately return an e-mail message sent Thursday seeking comment. The answering machine at Porter’s was full Thursday, and no one was there when the site was visited on Wednesday afternoon.

At least four other businesses own or use space within the 19-lot industrial park, which features electricity and sewer connections and close access to Route 157 and Interstate 95. The lots range from 0.895 to 6.12 acres.

Anyone interested in seeing Porter’s former location is asked to call McLean at 723-7800 or to e-mail bruce@magic-region.com.